Jenny Schwartz

Up next: Broadway's brightest

Jenny Schwartz came to playwriting through a side door, having received her master’s in direction from Columbia U. “When I graduated, I thought I would go on to be a director, but I decided to write a play instead,” Schwartz says. She wrote her way into Juilliard’s Playwriting Program.

“God’s Ear,” about a couple facing a splintered relationship in the aftermath of their child’s death, is a poignant and wryly stylized look at disconnection and grief. The play reopened Thursday Off Broadway (after a brief but well-received downtown run last year) at the Vineyard Theater.

“I’m inclined to take advantage of the magic of the theater. By someone saying one word, you can travel to a different place,” Schwartz says. “Just through language, you can change time, whereas you can’t in film or TV.”

Schwartz, 34, is under commission by Soho Rep, London’s Soho Theater and South Coast Rep, and is writing her next play, “Somewhere Fun.”